THINK YOU ARE READY FOR BLOCKCHAIN? READ THIS FIRST.

· Food Safety,FSMA,blockchain,FSVP,Walmart

Are you ready to implement Blockchain? Do you even know what it is and how it will change your processes? Here are 10 resources to help you get prepared a little more from my perspective as a food scientist and food safety consultant.

1. First off, lack of paperwork, transparency and traceability hurts everyone. See this post I did about the Romaine Lettuce incident in May 2018. It took several months to identify the cause of the outbreak and at the time I wrote this article, the source still hadn't been figured out yet. You can read the most recent updates from the CDC reports.

2. Walmart sent a letter and that means the entire industry is going to shift soon. I know this because that is exactly what happened in 2007 when they announced to their supply chain the need to become compliant to a GFSI benchmarked audit scheme. Based on the industry response then, I PREDICT Walmart will expand the requirement to other suppliers in 2019 and the other retailers will work on getting onto the new IBM Food Trust tool quickly and require more suppliers to be compliant between 2019 and 2020.

3. SO what is this blockchain though? How does it work and why does Walmart like it? Let's take a look at two videos:

6. And while we're at it, I am speaking to owners here in my VERY FIRST BLOG on my website about backing your QA Teams. Auditors can see through the paperwork and so can your retail customers if they are paying attention.

7. While we are discussing food safety cultures and blockchain, it is important to also talk about going digital with your paperwork. Here is an article that I wrote about doing just that.

8. So if you have read this far, I beg that you watch this video about saving your QA Team and joining Safe Food En Route, LLC's efforts to get you set up with 3iVerify.

9. And while Food Trust is a great project for getting companies on board with the blockchain technology, it is important that the smaller and medium sized companies are involved in the efforts of standardizing the platform to make sense for the entire industry. Join me in these efforts by joining the LinkedIN group, Global Food Blockchain Initiative. This is a non-profit group that is working on publishing a white paper to propose to the industry for standardizing a tool that makes sense. The founder is the same founder of the 3iVerify tool and is brilliant in these efforts. They have developed one of the best tools that I have seen in the industry and it will continue to get better as we standardize the platform requirements. Here is an article I wrote about the efforts.

10. Last but definitely not least, if you think you are ready to talk more about this, please email us using the contact button below. We can walk you through these efforts to get compliant to Walmart's request. Tell us you are interested in getting blockchain compliant!